Th goal of 3BL is to showcase and explain how corporate sustainability and social media are intertwined, specifically how businesses can be both green and profitable, while making sure their employees are engaged in the process.

If you have a client who might like to be associated with this kind of content, or has a related book or event to promote, contact Angelo at Angelo at your3bl dot com, or call 480-205-8156.   They have a solid lineup of guests scheduled already and are looking for more.  There are also intro sponsorship packages available, such as two spots per week for 13 weeks at only $550.00.

SMAZ/Sept 2010 will have a special focus on case studies and digital marketing.  The final agenda will be available at www.socialmediaaz.org, so check in periodically for the latest info on the presentations.  Also at this conference they will be announcing the SMAZZIES, the social media awards. Once again, it will be held at the Madcap Theater in Tempe, 730 S. Mill Avenue.  Covered parking is available directly behind the theater.  The event starts at 8:30 and runs til 4:00 – I recommend you show up way before 8:30, however, because some of the best networking is in the morning before the sessions start.

Thanks to a good roundup of sponsors, morning coffee/bagels and lunch are complimentary:  SpyFu, AgencySide, Elixir, Mint Social, ASU SkySong, PRSA, TallWave, AZ Capitol Times, BMA, AMA, SEMPO, SiteWire, Intel, IBM, AZWebCasting, City of Tempe, KEO Marketing, Off Madison Ave, Shwaag and Vertical Measures.

To register, click here.   ValleyPRBlog readers can use “SMAZ3VPRB” as a discount code good for 25% off.

Master PR practitioners shed light on the APR in a very dark bar

Six of the “master PR practitioners” from the local PRSA chapter met recently at Morton’s to discuss the current APR requirement for national PRSA leadership.   As the only one of the six who does not currently have accreditation, I felt a little outnumbered.   Kudos to George Couch APR, however, who is a delegate to the national assembly and wanted to get a read on how the local chapter feels about the requirement.

The APR has become, as he put it, the most divisive issue in the industry. To summarize the controversy for those of you who haven’t followed it, there are two broad camps:

• (mostly) those without accreditation who have been in PR for 20 years or more and feel no need to take the time or money to earn it, and who have never been asked about it by clients or employers yet still want to contribute to national leadership with their expertise
• (mostly) those with accreditation who have pride in the effort they put forth to earn the designation, and feel that PRSA should “walk the walk” if it wants to promote the value of the APR by requiring its national leaders to have it

Art Stevens, APR of StevensGouldPincus wrote an article in Bulldog Reporter July 6, 2010, “One More Plea to the PRSA Assembly:  Abandon the APR Credential.” A petition was started to remove the requirement for governance.  Here is part of the petition text, and you can sign it here if you are a member of PRSA. 

We, the undersigned, hereby petition PRSA to abandon the decades old requirement that its national officers and board members be accredited (APR). Less than 20% of PRSA members are accredited meaning that 80% of the 21,000 members cannot become PRSA leaders unless they choose to become APR.

We do not believe that democracy is being served in PRSA so long as only a small minority of its members can hold elective office.  We believe that many worthy members of PRSA who meet national leadership criteria in many other ways are being deprived of the opportunity to serve the organization.

We petition PRSA to remove this impediment and barrier to national leadership as soon as possible.  The undersigned are dedicated to a PRSA that allows all of its members to serve the organization. 

We believe that many worthy members of PRSA who meet national leadership criteria in many other ways are being deprived of the opportunity to serve the organization. We petition PRSA to remove this impediment and barrier to national leadership as soon as possible.  The undersigned are dedicated to a PRSA that allows all of its members to serve the organization. 

We believe that accreditation is an earmark for professional improvement but not for governance. At its November 2009 annual meeting, the PRSA Assembly voted to continue the APR requirement for national leadership. We consider this vote to be shortsighted and not consistent of what the vast majority of PRSA members want.

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The argument in favor of accreditation is strong, and I have to admit that the discussion that night (especially from Peter Faur APR!) moved the dial on my personal meter a little closer to supporting the notion of APR.  If we’re not licensed and don’t have a set of standards, as apparently Edward Bernays used to say, anyone can do PR and call themselves a PR person.  On the other hand, as Joanie Flatt APR pointed out, the only people who really understand or about APR are the people who have it, and PRSA. That said, she felt that the APR increases her respect for a PR professional, because having gone through it she knows what dedication it involves. 

Ray Artigue APR also agreed with the value of the APR, but conceded to my point that there is a huge percentage of PR professionals who are extremely talented but do not have an APR.  Preventing them from national leadership seems a pity. But, he said, it does send the right signal that all of your leaders are accredited.

Best line of the evening – “No wonder we’re not credible.  Other professions can trace their roots back to admirable beginnings.  PR, on the other hand, traces its roots back to PT Barnum.”

Some of those who have the APR don’t even mention it on their credentials. They feel it is enough that they personally took the time to earn it, and have found that to the outside world, it doesn’t have much meaning.

Paula Pedene APR felt that earning the APR had improved the way she practices PR, helping her become more strategic, in addition to providing credibility in a workplace that is rife with degrees.

George asked me directly, “are you better because of it?”  I immediately said yes. I enjoyed reading the books and learning about the history of the profession.  His question made me realize that my real contention is not so much with the APR as a concept, but with the format of the APR process as it currently stands. I wasn’t bowled over by the Readiness Review portion of it, which I passed, and especially not impressed with the online multiple choice exam, which I had to take at a testing center in Tempe.

I have some background to back up my discontent – for my graduate degree in communications at Boston University, we were required to take several courses in quantitative and qualitative research, which included questionnaire design. As I took the accreditation test online, I was very disgruntled with how the questions were worded. I went to the national leadership with my concern, and ran into a brick wall.

There was agreement by the end of the night that it really boils down to whether or not PRSA believes in accreditation. If yes, they should market it more actively and fix the exam. And as Ray put it, “Let’s leverage real-world experience versus theory.”

Something tells me this issue won’t be resolved… and something tells me the assembly will vote it down this fall.

Although I’m not a fan of her blog overall (I think she tries to be controversial a little too often), I do find Penelope Trunk’s Nov 2006 post on sexual harassment  interesting.   “Most sexual harassment isn’t severe enough to hold up in court,” she writes, ”and the law isn’t strong enough to protect you from most types of retaliation. So unless your safety is at risk, you’re usually best off handling the harasser yourself rather than reporting him to human resources.”

The punitive part of my brain says, hey, that guy who harassed me should pay for his transgressions.   The logical part of my brain thinks, hey, better to approach the harasser immediately and privately to address my concerns. Give him a chance to change his behavior before calling the HR cops on him.

I’ve had a couple of situations in my work history where I was uncomfortable. Following are the stories, and I asked Human Capital Business Consultant Josephine Svendblad to review the accounts and weigh in on what I should have done.  Both instances happened when I was in my mid-20s, the same age Anita Hill was when the incidents occurred.

Story 1 – I was working for the communications department of a high-tech company. I had worked closely with the in-house video manager on several projects. He was in his early 40s, married with kids.  One day after I had picked up my tray in the company cafeteria, he came over to me in the middle of the cafeteria and ran his hands up and down the sides of my body.   “You look so good today!” he exclaimed.  

Needless to say, I was pretty shocked and stunned, not to mention a bit defenseless because my hands were holding my tray. My boss, the marketing communications manager, witnessed the whole thing and came over to my office after lunch and asked me if I wanted to report it to the HR director.   I was so embarrassed by the whole incident and so reluctant to have it go anywhere or continue to think about it that I told my boss, no.   A few months later, after I had left the company and read of the video manager’s promotion, I actually sent him a congratulatory note.   This was my way of denying both to myself and to him that the incident had occurred and assauging my embarassment and horror.   

Story 2 – Not quite so blatant in physical proximity, but uncomfortable nonetheless. I worked as a public relations manager for a large high-tech company. One of the other marketing employees was a good ole Texas boy in his 40s, married with kids.  Every time he passed me in the hallways, when no one else was in earshot, he would comment on how good or nice I looked that day. It was always uttered in the creepiest of fashions, not as a sincere neutral compliment. The first one or two times, I thanked him.  After that, I just tried to avoid him altogether. 

Here is Josephine’s take on what I should or might have done instead:

1. It does not matter how old a person is, harassment of any kind is unacceptable and illegal. The best thing for Linda to have done is to have told the video manager that his comment was unwelcome and that if it happened again that she would inform management. But let’s face it, people get caught off guard as Linda did in this case and she was stunned. I think that Linda handled the situation well. My advice for her then would have been to escalate to management if his behavior continued. Taking the high road and congratulating him was a display of closure for you, good for you.

2. My advice is to always take charge of a situation like this and first tell the offender to “stop” right when it happens. If an individual does not cease with his/her behavior then it really needs to be brought to managements/HR’s attention. I think that Linda should have escalated this instead of uncomfortably avoiding him in the hallways. If this man offended Linda with his creepy behavior “when no one was around” then he most likely offended others as well.

*******

Fast forward to the late 90s, when I was in my late 30s.  I was working for a startup company where the ratio of men to women was heavily lopsided.   One of the engineers with whom I was casually friendly wanted to demonstrate to me how strong he was, and clasped me in a body stranglehold.    This time, instead of shutting down with embarassment at having my personal space invaded, I yelled out loudly, “Take your hands off me!”  He relinquished me immediately and seemed genuinely embarassed, and never hassled me again.

Have you ever had a weird moment at work and wished you could go back in time and handle it differently?

1)      What are some of the hot issues you see CEOs concerned about in this recession?     

Improving customer service, improving products and services, improving transparency with investors, improving fiscal controls.  Kind of business as usual, on steroids.  From a PR perspective, that means fine-tuning the message for various audiences more than ever.  Whether due to the recession, new/social media or both, message development rules.  From traditional media training to new/social media, the techniques for delivering that message don’t matter if you don’t have the message right.  Funny how such a radical concept is exactly what the inventors of media training believed nearly 40 years ago.

 2)      Should an executive undergo media training even if he/she doesn’t plan to be in front of cameras?

 Absolutely.  The same techniques are vital in front of any audience, whether a reporter is involved or not.  Moreover, when executives are facing The Big Interview, I can help them far more by fine-tuning their existing skills for the topic at hand than by providing a mind-numbing crash course.

 3)      Are there certain industries that seem to be more in need of media training as part of the job?

 At some level, all industries can benefit from regular media training, since the same techniques are vital in any communication environment.  Of course industries in which anyone can be hurt (whether by their operations or their products), are more in need of media crisis training than others.  In those industries, I train everyone from CEOs and VPs to plant managers and safety experts.

 4)      In your opinion, who are some of the people in the national or international news right now, who demonstrate great “presence” on camera, no matter what is asked of them?  What specifically do they do that exhibits good media training?

I don’t think of CEOs as communications superstars these days, and that’s probably the way it should be.  Beyond solid analyst ratings, here’s how I define the good (and the bad):

Good:  The majority of unsung CEOs and the handful of politicians who actually answer the question that was asked before artfully conveying their own message.  They can be further identified by the rule of thumb that you notice and care about what they’ve said, not their oratorical hi-jinks.

Bad:  The majority of politicians and the handful of CEOs who follow the political style of media training, “pivoting,” “redirecting,” “deflecting” or otherwise simply giving their message while ignoring the actual question asked.  Or sometimes explicitly stating that the question “doesn’t matter,” “isn’t important,” “isn’t what the audience cares about,” etc.  They can be further identified by the rule of thumb that your reaction is, “Yeah, right…blah, blah, blah….”

_________________

The startup company I worked for a decade ago brought Roy in for media training for the entire executive team.  We were tutored and videotaped in front of our peers – talk about incentive to learn quickly!   Roy had us laughing with his ability to turn innocent answers into double entendres in much the way you see interviewers today twist unintended meanings out of simple comments.   Great training for the cold, cruel world out there.  

Your CEO may say he/she doesn’t need media training – don’t believe it.

Warning – once you’ve had media training, you will never be able to watch a broadcast interview the same way again.   You look for the eye movement, the deflection of the topic, the nervous tic, the inane responses (why does poor Miss South Carolina come to mind?).

If you’re looking for a book that has enough data for the nonbelievers as well as significant how-to chapters on setting up campaigns, this is it.  Facebook now is primarily used by the 35-55 age group, and is growing exponentially faster than LinkedIn.    “If you don’t want to fish in a pond that is packed with approximately 800,000 new fish every single day,” says the author, “then have fun somewhere else.”  The days of forcing customers to go to a website of your choosing are gone. You have to go to where your fans are.

After throwing enough stats in the first few chapters to convince even the most stalwart Luddite, Levy explains how to establish a corporate presence on Facebook, the power and reach of Facebook Connect, how and when to set up Facebook advertising and take advantage of its 11 different audience filters, the value of Facebook apps, privacy concerns, marketing strategies, how to develop communities, and best in class examples.

It’s hard to argue with the logic of the book, and you can use the arguments to bolster your explanations to management as well as to fine tune the campaigns you develop for your clients. 

One of the first concerns about social media mentioned by reluctant users is over perceived privacy issues, and Levy quotes Dawn Foster’s comment that “people confuse ‘personal’ with ‘private’” – big difference.  You can be personal – read ‘personable’ – on Facebook, without exposing your privacy barriers. 

There are three goals when developing a Facebook marketing strategy:

• Community building –  if your goal is to develop a strong overall presence on Facebook
• Marketing and promotion – if your goal is to drive traffic to landing pages or event registration or to promote awareness around a product launch or special offer
• Advertising – although the most limited strategy of the three, this is helpful if your goal is to use Facebook only as another advertising stream for your company product or service.

Levy doesn’t leave out measurement and web analytics, either, or the sweat equity costs that go into the time spent to built a community.

Even if you consider yourself a Facebook expert, there are some good tips to keep in mind (or to refresh your memory) as you develop your clients’ strategies. Best of all, there are excellent “best in class” case studies in the 10th chapter that cover a good sampling of celebrities, products and services, ranging from how Volkswagen and Microsoft Office use Facebook campaigns to the tricks and tips used by Mashable, the Jonas Brothers, and Gary Vaynerchuk.  Levy also points out that instead of creating community around your product or service, you can choose to create it around the industry your product provides for. 

Some other gems from the book to use with your recalcitrant client:

• With Facebook, humans can showcase the individual personalities that help them to make them who they are
• As Chris Brogan says, it helps companies “grow bigger ears”
• It’s not eating up your time as much as it is making an investment in your future
• The blending of personal and professional helps develop a strong community
• Facebook is now the top driver of traffic, over Google, to large sites
• There is still a lot of value in corporate websites, but nowadays, you have to go where your prospects, customers, and fans hang out and build communities with them there. This in turn can direct customers toward visiting your corporate website and engaging with you on your turf.
• Facebook helps humanize your brand
• People use Facebook as part of their online reputation management and personal/professional branding strategy
• For the nonbelievers who are reading the book, this is your call to action. Enough is enough. It’s time to accept that social networks aren’t going anywhere. 

Justin Levy is director of business development, marketing, and client relations at New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency based outside Boston. He’s also partner and general manager of Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse, which eats its own (steak)food and has successfully used social media to drive sales and build communities.   The book is published by Pearson Education and you can learn more at www.justinrlevy.com

It’s a flexible, non-linear approach to solving issues in the workplace.  The process gets you to think, rather than follow a prescribed formula to conflicts, and that is the power of the concept. One of the key themes that Katz emphasizes in the book is that you should not go into conflict resolution with a pre-determined idea of what the other person will say, but rather with an idea of what your game plan should be and what is personally negotiable and non-negotiable.

This is a powerful way of approaching conflicts, because you focus on a different area than on trying to prepare for a debate or trying to anticipate their reaction. In order to understand one’s personal style, Katz includes a simple questionnaire that helps categorize people into one of five different styles:  attacking, confronting, problem solving, compromising, and withdrawing.

If you already have self-knowledge, you might not need to read the book. But how many of us truly understand how to approach various work conflicts? The author describes several examples of how her clients faced common problems at work, and how they use the Working Circle to analyze and solve the problem successfully, keeping in mind that success might not mean we get the result we are hoping for, but we still gain valuable insights and experience.

As Katz notes, breaking down a complex and disturbing problem often gives one a feeling of empowerment.   Part of the process is looking to your past to find examples of where you have encountered similar issues and how you dealt with them.  Have you encountered a bully before?   Have you been caught in the middle of fights and disagreements?  

The Working Circle is designed to take into account what are called the masculine and feminine approaches to conflict resolution. Rather than being gender specific, which Diane is careful to note in almost every chapter of the book,  these are just general terms to describe aggressive and avoidance approaches to conflict. The optimal solution is more collaborative.

Of special interest to PR professionals, Chapter 6 deals with ethics and conflict:  “What happens when you have to defend your organization to an outsider, all the while knowing that what your company did was not right?”  

The bottom line is that solving conflicts often takes a certain amount of courage, and the payoff is significant to personal satisfaction.    The goal of the process is to transform the individuals involved. The message of the book is don’t be intimidated by anyone or any situation. 

The Working Circle process can be applied to personal conflicts in our lives as well, and I suspect that the author’s next book will be “Win at Home!” 

Diane Katz  lives in Tucson and has a master’s degree in organizational psychology, and a PhD in conflict resolution. Win at Work! is published by Wiley and available in bookstores nationwide.  For more information, visit www.TheWorkingCircle.com.

Thanks to PR firm O’Connor Communications for bringing this book to my attention.

I asked agency CEO Aric Zion what he thinks the agency does differently.  

“First, we’re not straight PR, i.e. we take it to another level where we integrate advanced analytics for both PR and social media, and we have an in-house team that focuses on web applications development to enhance our social media efforts. Also, being a full-service firm, it’s very easy for us to augment our clients’ PR and social media campaigns on the fly with creative, web elements, signage, e-mail campaigns, etc.

“As for the employees, here’s the straight story. If you walked into the Zion and Zion office, you’d find a 14-month-old puppy as our mascot in the office every day. You would find whiteboard walls and bright orange and yellow concrete leather chairs in our brainstorming “Thinking Room.”

“You would find us shutting down the company for three days each year for an employee lake outing on a workday, and in July, you’ll find the whole company at a Tuesday morning movie outing. The bottom line is that if people aren’t having fun, they’re not productive, they’re not loyal, and clients and the businesses suffer.”

The key to being able to expand, he says, is being a truly integrated firm, where every person in every functional area and at every level of the organization is also heavily involved in areas outside their own. The fact that the PR people work with the applications developer and designer on a social media campaign enables them to bring things to their clients that are beyond the traditional scope.

Also key, he feels, is the fact that when a client asks for something last minute or outside the scope of their agreement, Zion & Zion employees are always genuinely enthusiastic about exceeding their expectations. “Clients hate lawyer-like billing,” he says, “and they steer clear of it as much as possible.”

There are three things they look for when they are in hiring mode. First is what he calls “a forward-leaning posture,” where the person literally looks as if he or she can’t wait to come across a table and get started because they just know how good a job they can do.

Two is a person who is already well-versed in areas outside their core area and/or has an innate desire to expand their skills.

Three is someone who is technology-savvy and has his/her head around social media and measuring everything that they do, because “clients absolutely love it when you really want to measure things and don’t just do it because you have to.”

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I look at 3 things myself when I evaluate the local economy:  how many agencies and companies are hiring and at what level, and how Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts are doing.    All three signs look good now!

Here is the job description.  Have the right background?  Send your resume to Human Resources at jobsphx@swlaw.com

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This individual will support the communications manager in all aspects of the firm’s public relations activities, including strategic planning, media relations, recognition/award programs, community relations, event support, web site content development/management, and various internal communications projects.

Primary responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following:

• Oversee all facets (press releases, story development/pitching, key message creation, etc.) of local and national media relations efforts for the firm’s Phoenix office
• Meet with individual attorneys and practice groups on a regular basis and, on occasion, with other offices to understand and uncover potential newsworthy content
• Identify and manage key award opportunities and ensure timely completion of all submission materials
• Maintain consistent firm-wide public relations guidelines
• Manage day-to-day activities related to web site news-related content
• Conduct and/or oversee all internally-focused online surveys
• Support local and firm-wide community relations programs/activities
• Perform various administrative functions supporting firm-wide public relations efforts (cross-agency communications, press clip management/distribution, vendor invoices, etc.)
• Assist, as needed, with marketing department events and tasks

The successful candidate must possess strong written / verbal communication and project management skills, enjoy taking initiative with internal clients and working in a fast-paced team environment, and be able to manage multiple demands and priorities. Specific project demands or deadlines require work-hour flexibility on an as-needed basis. A bachelor’s degree in public relations / communications or related field is required, along with three to five years of front-line corporate or public relations agency experience. A background in legal marketing is preferred. A basic understanding of corporate-based social networking campaigns is a plus. Candidates must present a professional and polished image. Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel is expected.

Snell & Wilmer offers a competitive performance-based compensation and benefits package, including health and life insurance, 401K, profit sharing, tuition reimbursement, and an employee assistance program. Snell & Wilmer is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer.